


I suppose it begins with a game

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Alpha Rose comes across a troll in a dream bubble</p>
            </blockquote>





	I suppose it begins with a game

**Author's Note:**

> I keep doing the thing where I don't ever name a character and I expect everyone to know who it is

You become wary when you start seeing gray-skinned aliens everywhere. The afterlife takes you to strange places, and you can’t always be sure the other ghosts you meet are friendly. Based on prior experience with this race, you wouldn’t bet on it.

To be fair, you only had experience with one. But that experience shaped the last several years of your life. Could one really blame you for being reluctant to spend time here? Or perhaps you could stand to open your mind a little.

“Come now, we don’t bite,” says one, and you start. She must be addressing you; she’s looking right at you, standing right in front of you. Her companions (or at least, some beings that appear to be of this same alien race) pay you no mind, and go on their own ways. None of them seem unfriendly, but looks can be deceiving.

You wonder why you still have a survival instinct in death.

Remembering your manners, you try to collect yourself. You’ll try to be open, you decide. “I’ve been bitten pretty hard by alien races before,” you explain apologetically.

She raises her eyebrows in interest. The longer you make eye contact, the more you’re unsettled by her eyes; completely white and blank. That’s not to mention the tattoos and the piercings and dark makeup. It was that style which always commanded respect at best and intimidated at worst. Her seemingly default bitchface wasn’t exactly helping her case either, and neither were her teeth when she spoke again. “You met trolls in your life?”

“Is that what your race is called?” you ask. You never really caught that. You wonder what other bits of information you missed. The young woman in front of you nods and you continue. “There was one who attempted to take over my home planet to rebuild her empire. I never met her in person, but I fought against her.”

She nods in recognition. “That must have been the post-scratch version of Meenah, then. The Condesce, am I right?”

You blink a few times before you regain your composure. Does she know the woman that became your sworn enemy? “Yes, that’s right,” you say weakly. You have so much to ask, but what comes out first is “Post-scratch?”

She nods once more. “It’s a very long explanation. Suffice to say The Condesce is an alternate universe version of a friend of mine.” There’s a pause as she allows you to absorb this information. It’s not a hard concept to grasp, but you do wonder just how different these alternate universes are (were?). “Come to think of it, I must have met an alternate universe version of you once too.”

That snags your interest. “Have you really?”

“I’m almost sure of it. You look so much like her, though she was much younger.” Her tone drops here, as if she’s talking to herself rather than you. “I believe her name was Rose.”

“Lalonde?”

She smirks at you. You see her teeth again. Do all trolls have fangs like that? “So I was right.”

She offers no more information, prompting you to ask for it. “What was she like?”

“Alive.” With that word, you’re desperate for more information. Is this not some kind of afterlife? “She and some of her friends were physically passing through these dream bubbles.” Not exactly the afterlife, then. “I’m not sure how long it’s been for her. Time doesn’t even matter here, but it must for her. She’s trying to save reality itself.”

Reality is in danger? How could it be? How does she expect to save it? What are dream bubbles? “When you say young…”

“She couldn’t have been much older than seven.” How could she say that so casually? A mere child in a race to fight something apparently much more formidable even than the foes you faced in your life.

Seven years old. “Good god. How is it her responsibility to save reality?”

The young troll woman pursed her lips. “It’s a very long story,” she says. “I mean, I could answer your question directly, but I have a feeling I’d only be raising more questions. Shall I just start from the beginning, then?”

Dumbly, you nod. That’s how this whole conversation has been going, after all. You swallow back all of your questions that should be answered in time, and just ask one more. “Just where does the story begin?”

She smirks once again. “I suppose it begins with a game.”


End file.
